How do you have energy to balance your heart of service with your personal needs? We have desires, don’t we? How do align our desires with Divine Will, where we help needs meet resources in every part of life and in every relationship?

Today I write about how we can go from our Drama to our Dharma, and live beyond people pleasing and everyday selfishness in our true and natural “Aloneness.” I also include a breath based meditation for paid subscribers. Today’s post is timed to align with the Gene Key transit of the Gate of Divine Will. Enjoy!

Krishnamurti is said to have been asked what his secret was. He said, “I don’t mind what happens”.

So someone gets mad at me, or angry. And they come at me not just with their anger, but with criticism, with judgement, with the strong feeling that I should be different than I am. Ha, this is the nightmare to the people pleaser in me. It’s the disaster. People pleasers really want to help others, and be in right relationship with them. But the reality is that people-pleasing is actually another form of control. It is an attempt to avoid conflict and even meet one’s own needs by pleasing others or meeting their needs first. Sometimes it’s an unconscious expectation that if I do this for you, you will do something else for me, communicated or not. The drama inevitably comes when we cannot meet people’s needs, or our needs are suppressed. We explode onto others or they explode onto us. “Why didn’t you just say so?” With accusations like “You don’t know what I go through.” Or “You don’t care about me.” I have done all these things and been on both sides of this perpetrator/victim mentality.

The drama, as we all know, did not start with this situation. It has its roots deep in the body, in dysfunctional family relationships, shadows, core wounds, insecure attachment, displaced sense of self worth, and lack of deep connection to our own selves, generally. In Tantra Yoga the roots are even deeper in the causal body as Samskara or deep impressions from past and current life events that affect our deepest framing and orientation of our energy.

At the heart of the drama is the attachment to things going a certain way, not being able to not “mind what happens” like Krishnamurti. This did not mean he did not do anything in life, or care about people around him. It means he did not take issue with what happens. He was not attached to a certain outcome, for him or for others. This is because in reality, it is our attachments to things going or being a certain way that creates the drama. Ultimately these attachments are places in which we are fated to look for unity where it can never be found: in people, places, things.

When we stop attaching our sense of unity to the ever changing world of things, we lose our sense of blame and shame associated with controlling things. Can we control them anyway. We don’t need to force things to work out. We don’t need to force or people please anymore.

The judgement goes away. What is happening if we are not judging things as good or bad, or “minding” it?

Attunement is happening
In our attunement to what is happening now, the life that is happening in us, and in those around us, something special happens. Just attuning to what is – not judgmental, forceful, or needy. Attunement means listening to Life, listen FOR life. It’s in us and in those around us. Attuning to what is happening now, we see not only who is in front of us, their needs and wants, and that relationship, but a lot more. In attunement, we attune to the mysterious knowing that envelops life, the spirit of what wants to be here; Completion, joy, change, transformation, mystery, beginnings, middles, ends…nourishment, sustenance, and fruition.

This attunement brings so many gifts. Our attunement gives us natural and healing resolve. We are resolved to create boundaries, share support and have our own convictions and communicate those without judgement. We do not need to change others. We do not require they be different. We attune to the life in us as well as around us. We meet others where they are. We call them forth, not needing to “call them out.” We support life in the flow of things, up-down-in-out. We need not lose ourselves serving others, or isolate our needs from others in order to fulfill them. We are simply attuning. But this brings up an interesting key here: we need alone time to do this.

Aloneness is a necessary part of the process of attunement. And it’s quite a mystical aloneness, to the point it achieves something that cannot be described by words like God/Goddess/Source/Brahma or any other names for God. To be alone is to be alone with God. To be alone with all that is, was, and ever will be. Ironically, to be alone is to be alone is to be with everything.

When we are attuned we can do almost anything in service to God. By her Grace. Miraculous powers come and go without force, as needed, right on time. This is like the story of Hanuman from the Ramayana*. But to be servants of Divine Will, we are going to need to be like mirrors to what is needed. And we need our mirror to be clean. Pass the spray bottle.

The first lines of the Hanuman Chalisa* tell us how to get there. How to cross the ocean within ourselves*. “With the dust of my gurus feet I dust the mirror of my own mind.” If your mind is dirty, everything you look at gets distorted by the narrowness of your attachments and story lines. How do we clean the mind? We bow to the quiet witness with us. We bow by being pure awareness. Information does not clean the mind, action cleans the mind. We are taken by our anxiety, the dramas, the pain of feeling to our knees. This anxiety accumulates and by grace eventually brings us to Reality, to God. We bow in devotion to what is Real. We need strength, discernment, and knowledge to serve Life and Mystery fully. “Give me strength, judgement and knowledge.” is another line from the Chalisa. We need strength first, then discernment to seek what is real and knowledge to serve that.

There is another secret in the metaphor of Hanuman to serve Divine Will here. Hanuman is a deep metaphor for prana, for breath and life energy. We actualize our connection to the divine through our breath. We align our breath and perform “miracles.”

This is where all the personal alchemy that turns drama into dharma happens. When faced with anxiety, drama, judgment, dissatisfaction, disappointment, anger, we learn to breathe. We must breathe to get through real anxiety. This is why you have heard so much about breathwork lately. It is integral. In Tantra Yoga pranayama and breathwork are absolutely critical to success and deeper and subtle states of awareness. Look for my offerings and introduction to breathwork that will give you life-long tools for transforming drama and anxiety in to growth and service to life.

How our breath connects us Divine Will

When we are in the storm of emotions like fear, desire, pain (emotional or physical), we are taken out of this moment and into a narrowed state of the activated senses. Breathing in specific ways regulates the body, and returns our nervous system to a calm dynamic state. As our system reaches its natural peacefully aware, self-regulating basis, we are able to experience the sensations of the body and mitigate overwhelm. Not to remove the feeling, but to allow it to flow through us.

In Tantra Yoga, breath is also energy flowing through the energy body as prana. It is more than just oxygen. It is the energy experienced moving through the body in rhythms of expansion and contraction. It is this wave pattern that can handle the energy and move it where it needs to go. It is the stabilizing quality of breathing that regulates the body each time we breath.

When faced with a powerful emotion or energy, breathe as it comes. When faced with a powerful time in life, practice pranayama daily before meditation or before yoga. In this way you allow the body to regulate naturally and the emotions you are experiencing to complete their work in you and those around you. In this way we return to our dynamic state where we can be of service to life, strong, understanding, compassionate and very very effective. In this way we are perfectly at home here “alone with everything.”

Now let me take you through a simple breath meditation, this is a very ancient technique for tantra yoga. It is very simple but must be practiced to be effective. There is much more to it. Let me just give you a taste you can take with you.

First get in a comfortable seated position, minimizing distractions and silencing phones. Removing pets and shutting doors, opening or shutting windows if needed for the next 5 minutes or so.

Now take in three big breathes, holding before a long exhale. Inhaling big and holding for a count of around 7…3,2,1. Long slow exhale through mouth or nose. Now repeat two more of these.

Now close your eyes and breathe normally for a minute. Observe the breath, how it enters and goes down into the body on each inhale, and up and out of the body on each exhale.

Continue for 5-20 minutes. Your breathe will slow and become gentle. It may erupt in deep breathes and sighs. This is natural. As you relax and your breathe slows continue to focus your attention on the sensation of each breath and the gap that is created between them. You may focus on the sensation and the gap. As thoughts and emotions come through you, simply notice them and take them as a queue to return your awareness to your breathe. We will practice this for another minute and you can continue as long as you like.

By staying here we lose attachment to thoughts, and feelings attached to them. In witnessing them as they come and letting them go, we experience them from our pure awareness. Allowing a deep process of integration and healing.

When done, return by slowly opening the eyes. Drawing attention to one thing in the room gently allowing ourselves to gaze, then remove our gaze. Feeling this moment, freshness, openness, acceptance, and the joy that is our natural rested and awake state.

Thanks for reading. Be well and know that you are loved.

*The Ramayana is a Sanskrit epic poem of ancient India.

*The Hanuman Chalisa is devotional hymn written by Tulsi Das from the 16th Century.

Image shows Hanuman covered in vermillion, standing with two lingem on a podium that has a tile depicting Shiva Shambuh.

How are we to build intimacy? In our honesty? In our transparency? In our vulnerability? Over time our awareness moves us from our trauma to our tantra. That is, from our family and personal karma, inner wounds, trauma, and inner pain…to our embodied awareness, honesty, and capacity for true intimacy and connection.

Intimacy came up in my men’s circle last week. We asked “What is Intimacy?”. We loved asking this question and hearing the answers and feelings that men came up with. One man answered “Into me, I see”. This highlighted the reflective quality of intimacy. It is really vulnerable to be present completely and open with another person as they are. To see someone fully is also to be present as oneself fully. Both of us fully present creates the intimacy.

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“Stop all thoughts. Whenever you become aware that you are thinking, stop thinking, come back to the present moment.” - Ranjit Chaudhri.

I teach the 8 limbs of yoga with a very simple and practical approach based on Tantra Yoga as taught to me by my lineage teacher. My guru described the first limb of yoga – Yamas – as simply “Do no harm”. The second limb – Niyamas – he described as “self discipline and self-inquiry”. To practice the second limb, in part, is to monitor one’s thoughts throughout the day. According to the tradition, thoughts can be roughly put into 4 categories.

• Pleasurable

• Negative

• Useful

• Useless

Pleasurable thoughts bring pleasure to life, cause laughter, and bring joy. These thoughts are OK to have of course. Though, eventually we will let these go too. Negative thoughts are of anger, fear, hatred, and criticism etc. Entertaining them causes illness and harms others. These thoughts are to be stopped immediately upon awareness of them. Useful thoughts are thoughts we do for work. They are thoughts that have utility and are necessary for performing our tasks, roles, and jobs to meet our responsibilities in work and life. The last category of thoughts are Useless thoughts. They have no utility and also can be disregarded immediately upon awareness.

Useless thoughts haunt me everyday. My daughters are now keen, and point out when I share them. Haha. One consistent category of useless thoughts are my criticism of our local street department’s choices in signage placement, lane painting, and road planning while we drive home after school. I guess these can be put in the Negative category as well.

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Imagine getting the most out of every bite of a fresh peach. Every nibble, every tongue swipe across the upper lip. The glory of that yum! Then trying to eat all the peaches in the box. We chase pleasure, and it has control over us. We contort our lives to attain it. The opposite is true of pain. We try hard, unconsciously, to avoid it. We contort our lives to avoid it. We distort our speech, lose our minds even, seeking some pleasure and some relief from pain.

How do we escape these traps? We stop reacting to pleasure and pain. Instead, we experience them fully in the now. We do this with our awareness.

“On this path the world ceases to have any power over you. When we live in our ego, we are constantly reacting to this world and how it makes us feel. Our awareness actually has not like or dislike, It is constant, and it is always joyful.” - Ranjit Chaudhri

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To know loss truly is to grieve. To grieve is to know the love of something, or someone, within your self. It is the finding of that great void by knowing it as the spaciousness of love inside your self. Pain is a great teacher. Pain becomes suffering in our experience of it. Our suffering squeezes us, it tells us to drop the unnecessary we are still holding onto. Pain shows us we are alive. Suffering any of that pain is our own choice, though we mostly do not want to remember this.

To know pleasure is to know the extent of our capacity for enjoyment in this material world. But the reality is that the joy comes from within. The object or sense experience that causes joy is the not the source. This is coming from the heart and capacity of the self of the experiencer. As experiencers, pleasure and pain are both parts of being human. They are not good or bad. To experience them fully and let them go after is to experience life fully. It is the joy of living.

What if you trusted life through pleasures and pain? What if you trusted pain was a teacher and pleasure a visiting friend?

“Enjoy everything, but need nothing external for your happiness.” This is the secret to happiness in life. When we live in our ego, we are constantly reacting to this world and how it makes us feel. When we are living from our heart and respecting our soul, things come and go. We know this. We even come to appreciate the fleeting quality of life, because more always comes. What’s next?!

How do we deal with being lost in the world of pleasures and pains? How do we transcend being taken away from this moment by them? How do we escape being lost over and over again in our grief and pain? The short answer is we do this by feeling each experience fully. We do this by continuing to return when we have lost ourselves. We must, and do, take the invitation of suffering to grow and expand beyond our attachments to things.

Practice Being
First we become aware of all the information we receive from our sense organs. This witnessing awareness is enough for something special to happen. “This peach is very good, yum!” And “This loss is devastating, I am now listening…” The feelings grow in us, they overwhelm our bodies with sensation, swell and retreat. Then there is a wake left over. Then the feeling and its wake are passed. We do not ruminate. We do not worry about a feeling coming back or never coming back. These things are outside of our control. Our awareness has created a healthy detachment from feelings.

“On this path the world ceases to have any power over you. Our awareness actually has not like or dislike. It is constant, and it is always joyful.” - Ranjit Chaudhri

Through a little detachment we build our lives. To make oneself a vessel for life, we must treat our bodies and lives like temples. We must keep them clean and even hire bouncers at the door. LOL. I do this by protecting my health. I eat whole foods, or minimally processed stuff. I love to cook, and my own food processing is a delight I protect with peace and joy. I do regular Ashtanga Yoga to keep my body and mind both light and flexible. I move my body every day, jogging two miles each day. I reach out to others and keep healthy connections and good shared intentions alive. I choose joy over external appearance and am building a life that suits me, not my conditioning.

“The pleasure you obtain from the external world cannot compare with the joy you will find within.” Spend time knowing the heart of the experience that is you. Sit in stillness. Watch waves on the water. Watch light play around you. Listen and hear the wind, to music. Watch the trees sway and moisture move in the air. Go deep into this breath. Practice tantric meditation. Practice Sadhana. Meditate. Sing. Dance.

Now, enjoy. Enjoy being. Enjoy the ripe peach off the tree. Enjoy the pain of loss of something or someone you love. Let the love grow in you from your grief. Let the love grow. This life is short. At the most, we only take our impressions with us to the next life. Let yourself be fully “impressed”. ahaha. Let this world have its way with you, so to speak. I am. It is really interesting to forget and remember the wisdom of pleasure and pain. What a contrast. The forgetting is another pain, the remembering is another pleasure. Contrast keeps the game exciting. This is all Her game, praise Mother Divine. We are being shown so much. Be joy. Throughout the day, be joy. You are the source of it.

“I want you to laugh with your whole countenance, with your whole heart and soul, with all the breath of your life. In order to be able to laugh in this way you must have implicit faith in the power of the Self and try to Bring the outer inner parts of your being into perfect harmony... Seek refuge at his feet in total surrender. You will then see how the laughter that flows from such a heart defeats the world.”

– from Sad Vani Anandamai Ma

Everything we are experiencing is perfectly designed for us to experience so that we may experience the Divine. Divine Will is everywhere animating this life, heartaches and injuries included. The horrors of this world, also. Don’t forget the completely and impossibly joyful and profoundly aligning, expressive, and self-remembering ones either. It’s like all the pieces have been set in front of us to have the experiences necessary for us to have spiritual experiences, certain realizations or impressions, or simply to love ourselves in a new way.

The absurdity of life seen through any other lens is pure comedy. Also, it is a tragic comedy, full of tears and longing. This makes the whole thing so serious, so dramatic! This makes the laughter deeper, straight into the soul.

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The other day my daughter faced the shame of her teacher admonishing her in front of others without having the chance to stand up for herself. Turns out, she wasn’t so much to blame, the other student exaggerated the situation for leverage in a conflict, and she was too overwhelmed to tell her side and the values she was standing up for. She was really embarrassed and sad, maybe remorseful but upset by the whole situation. She values being in harmony, standing up for other kids, and being in right relationship with the teacher. I know these things about her. She didn’t want to go back to school the next day, she was so bent out of shape. We sussed things out a little and found out what happened. When she heard me and her sister support her response as imperfect but admirable, maybe she began to see the situation more clearly, honoring herself a little more. I saw the shift. By the end of the afternoon she was laughing again. Laughing at the silliness of something we were talking about. Her sister started making up alternate lyrics to one of their favorite songs and telling different stories with each one. It was hilarious. To see her full body belly laugh again delighted my heart.

When we get a little lighter, we see life’s travails as a series of misunderstandings and absurd contradictions, as dramas of opinion and happenstance. We get a little freer, we laugh more. If I spend part of each day touching base with Divine Will, aligning myself through prayer and meditation, my world is simple and wide open. I lighten the whole thing. Everything here is just another experience. Having put my faith in God/Goddess/Source I walk from a place of healthy detachment. This detachment is the direct product of what Ma calls “implicit faith in The Self “and my bringing the outer and inner parts into harmony. From this, the laughter can come fully, delightfully, knowing it is all in God’s hands. It is the lightness of being. I am in god’s hands. My daughter and her shame are in God’s hands. Your life is in God’s hands. The contradictions and the joys and all of it are literally from God’s hands.

As legendary Macho Man Randy Savage once said “You may not like it, but you will accept it!"

I had a depressed yoga instructor the other day. Instead of uplifting and encouraging, she was already over it. “Continue to breathe…two, three, and four.” But each number felt like a defeat. Instead of a chance to expand in breath and body awareness, her tone made it sound like a chore – another thing she really didn’t want to do! It was hilarious! lol. “Downward dog… ugh” haha.

Let this world put a smile on your face. Touch base each day with the only thing you will take with you into the next world: your heart’s connection. Listen to Ma, laugh with your whole self.

Thank you for reading. Until next time. Be well friends and know that you are loved.

“Consciousness is the essential quality in all bodies. There is no difference anywhere. Therefore everything is made of the same consciousness. By understanding this a person is victorious over worldly existence.” -Vigyan Bhairava Tantra (Stanza 100, Chaudhri)

Most people mistake thoughts for awareness. Thought is only a form of awareness. Even lucidity of thought is only a quality of awareness. Our Intellect is not our Intelligence. Knowing about things, and logical strings of things, is intellect. Intellect pales in comparison to Intelligence. Actually, real understanding is not to be found in the mind. Intelligence includes all levels of awareness and knowing. It is Awareness itself that appears as intellect and lucidity. It is Awareness that is intelligent.

It is Awareness itself that animates all bodies and all forms with their intelligence. This bears repeating: it is Awareness itself that animates all bodies and all forms with intelligence. Consciousness, not matter, is the basic foundation of the universe. In fact, matter is a form of consciousness. The Primacy of consciousness is the “perennial philosophy” of the ages. It is the basis of Advaita, or Nonduality. Awareness is ever present and beyond form, and yet it is animating all forms.

As pure awareness, everything takes on the quality of unity, belonging to awareness in unique and changing forms. This idea brings the dignity of the divine to all aspects of life and forms of nature. It does not mean there is no diversity, it means this diversity is nothing but awareness trying on new bodies, new forms, new experiences, all the time. Everything is intelligent, alive so to speak, and playing a necessary part.

“There is no difference anywhere” simply means, the quality of all things is the same. This quality is Creative Intelligence, Awareness, Being, Brahma.

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“By understanding this a person is victorious over worldly existence.” To be victorious over worldly existence does not mean to conquer it with force. It means to end the battle being played out in the self – to end the battle of attaching to what is not the self. There is no sense of superiority in this victory. Nothing can be lost, yet everything is gained.

Experiencing the Oneness of everything is to know that we are all God. All forms are God. God is everything, everywhere, all-pervading. This victory is the of loss of identification. And it can take some time… But it can happen in just an instant, also. It can happen in an instant. When we are in simple awareness, our most natural and effortless state of being, we become the witness. The effect of witnessing is extremely integrative, and life-giving. It is the key to psychotherapy of all kinds. The self witnesses. And in this witnessing we are freed of emotional blocks, knots, loops etc. In fact we surrender them freely, the bags are unpacked, we are home!

“Everything is made of the same consciousness” isn’t just a statement. It is something we can experience directly. This is the Victory. We experience this victory as a reunion. It is very interesting how this happens: our understanding of this “essential quality” as consciousness sits where our essential nature meets our experience. To experience this essential quality in this moment, practice being awareness. This way you will then be aware of it. To practice awareness one must have a direct experience of awareness itself. This happens when we practice the 8 Limbs of Yoga, especially the last 4.

How do you experience this state of simple awareness? If we are able to see thoughts come and go, experience feelings come and go, we are the witness. It is this witnessing that is called “pure awareness”. It is not a person, place, or thing. It is not even accurately described as a state. It is awareness itself. This is our seat of divinity. It is part of us, indwelling in all things as well.

Maharishi spoke about how our awareness elevates everything to the dignity of the eternal. Very beautiful. Consciousness is eternal. When tapped, it gives us a unique moment to enjoy the presence of the eternal within us. Yes we can experience directly our eternal nature. We do this as profound brushes with the eternal. We do this when we reunite with our own Being Awareness. This is victory. This feels like freedom. Only a little taste of this freedom is required to fill the body with bliss, relieving us of anxiety. Experiencing our awareness integrates us, allowing full expression of our soul’s gifts in this life. Experiencing our true nature as Consciousness also allows our dynamic and harmonious presence, in a world defined by change and chaos. It doesn’t take us away from life, it seats us deeply in it from the simplicity of our awareness. I suspect this is why we came to earth; to “forget” our true nature and in “remembering”, dip our feet in the water of bliss. It feels really really really good.

What are your brushes with eternity? In this meditation we can expand this experience of eternity to include all the crap; the stress and anxiety around us, the icky feelings, the contracting emotions, the anger. the thoughts, the habits – as well as the still moments of awareness; the glory of light in the trees, the asymmetry of plants, the buzzing bees, the vast valleys and rocks, the slow lazy river, the fast mountain falls.

The quote from the Bhairava Tantra at the top tells us how it happens. “There is no difference anywhere.” Divisions are absorbed. The pain is transmuted. Our sense of isolation is removed. In psychology and 12-steps we call this Acceptance, Surrender, and Serenity. The practice of acceptance is instantaneous in deep states within Tantra Yoga and other embodiment practices. Acceptance radiates from pure awareness. The fastest way to get there is deep yogic meditation, in my experience. There is a surrender here. There is a surrender of time and space to create a practice that enfolds us into stillness. It is effortless, but it must be given time and space. When we practice deep yoga, we surrender our ego thoughts and story lines to a process of union with awareness itself.

By surrendering our ego to our own Awareness we are victorious. We achieve victory within, absorbing the pain and fear and shame as they come, transmuting them through presence. This presence is unbounded love. This happens instantly in the presence of pure awareness. Emotions rise, and witnessed leave the body. There are ancient techniques for experiencing consciousness directly and experiencing the bliss that comes with being in pure awareness. I teach this technology one on one and to groups. Check for my offerings in 2026/2027.

Until next time, be victorious friends! Experience yourself as your being, ever present, responsive, aware, and intelligent. Know that you are loved.

“Who Am I?” Inquiring of duality, duality dissolves in the presence of Pure Awareness. A practice for being source.

“Who Am I? Once you sit down and ponder seriously over this question, you will soon discover that all the book learning you have crammed into your brain in school and college, and all the practical experience you have gained in active life, are not of the slightest help in solving this question.”

“If you want to discover the origin of the sense of ‘I’ and ‘My’, you have to alter the whole course of your thinking. And give your undivided attention to the search after truth.”

“Whenever the mind starts wandering, it must be firmly brought back to concentration upon the source of the ‘I’. This is means by which to arrive at self-realization.” -Anandamayi Ma

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The question “Who Am I?” is a powerful inquiry above from Anandamayi Ma. It was central to Ramana Maharshi’s teachings and others rooted deeply in Advaita and Nonduality. When we ask “Who Am I?” We inquire as to the nature of our true self. It is a question Americans tend to ask in times of identity crisis, or after leaving relationships. With this question, we inquire after who, or what, or how, we are. Interestingly, it is not an inquiry of Oneness so much as an inquiry that releases illusions.

When we ask “Who Am I?” We are performing the logic of a false assumption: there is no “who”. When we ask after our “who”, we are assuming there is a “who” to be asked after. In reality, all identities and life-times including our own are just passing through and changing. These passing ideas and “who’s” are defined only be limited states of perception, states which are also changing. These are the roles and identities we collect socially and relationally over time, including past lives. All these things are changing from day to day, decade to decade, life-time to life-time. What does not change and pass away is the awareness that experiences the identity, and lives the life-times of the human being. It is this awareness that is our being. It has no beginning and no end. It is not a “who” yet it sees through all who see. It is the one we are inquiring after.

This is not as abstract as it might seem. We can experience the Am between the “who” and the “I” in the inquiry directly. “Who Am I?”

Experiencing the “Am” at its source, as Ma stated above, we experience a realization of our true nature – the Self. This is our being. This self is hidden but everywhere revealed, in every person and every thing. It appears everywhere in unique moments, forms, bodies, and life times. It appears infinitely diverse. It is also One. It is everywhere unifying. It is beyond all forms and births them, maintains and recycles them. The being at the heart of the self is the being at the heart of all selves. We are all one.

So how can anyone fathom this? This is impossible to fathom through any thought or mentality. It can only be experienced directly. It can’t be known otherwise. This is why so many people seek but do not find the meaning of the inquiry “Who Am I?” As Ma says, “you have to alter your whole way of thinking.” We cannot know “who” we are in the realm of “Who” or “I”. We must know these things from another deeper level of awareness. In the saint Francis prayer it states “That in my self-forgetting I may find”. In this context, we can say this means that in forgetting the narrow confines of our understanding of our self we find our true nature, our connection to god, divine will. We are forgetting the ego and remembering the soul.

The Source of “I”

Practice concentration upon the source of “I”. Ma gives a perfect recipe for success in finding deep yogic meditation, a deep experience of Oneness. 1. Give your undivided attention 2. When the mind wanders, return. Before you start, do a few things to prepare. Ma has described this formula for us in other texts as well. First, get into a relaxed meditative posture, in a quiet and solitary space turn the mind inward, observing the breathe. You may practice special breath tantra here, and that is recommended for optimum results. Ma recommends Mantra attuned with breathe. Whenever a thought comes in, or your mind wanders, continue to remove your attention from these passing thoughts and the emotions attached to them. This continuing return will allow you to experience directly your awareness, the seat of your self and your divine nature. This is the source of “I”. This is the true result of inquiry; experiencing the awareness asking the question. Ma instructs us that this takes daily practice, and commitment. I recommend 2-5 minutes of breath work, and 20 minutes of meditation. Experiment and find what works for you. Experiment without straining, in a natural way.

I teach Tantra Yoga, breathe, vedic mantra, sādhāna and how to reach deep expansive states of awareness, bliss, and authenticity. I will be offering classes and solo instruction in the coming months so stay tuned for what offerings I currently have up.

Until next time. Know that you are loved. Know that you ARE love.

Therefore, try to see only the bright side of things in whatever you perceive. It is the good and beautiful which are true and living, whereas the bad and ugly are only the shadow of what really is. Nobody ever wishes to be bad.

When you seek the company of others, remember you are out to find the good and beautiful. Truly, if you are simple and sincere inwardly, as well as outwardly, your heart will be pure and full of joy, and your intelligence and reason sound and accurate. Then, you will find good everywhere and nothing will appear to be evil.

-Anandamayi Ma

I had a deep and profound realization recently around resentment.

First, I resent people not because of what they do or do not do. I resent them because of my judgements and expectations I project onto them as to who they should be. Not who they actually, are but who I think they should be. Second, my resentments are entirely a reflection of me and my internal state.

Here is an example from my past. Once upon a time I found myself really withdrawing and isolating from a romantic relationship. After a few weeks of breaking away, I realized that what I was doing was avoiding feelings, feelings I did not want to feel fully. My fear of rejection was so deep in me I didn’t even see I was running from it. I also had felt embarrassed and frustrated after being put on the back burner, so to speak.

I learned from this situation two important things. First, I had not structured the relationship consciously by communicating and inviting this person into the vision I had for us, and as space where after sharing how I felt, she could have shared her feelings, mood, and space with me. This would have set up the relationship for exploration and curiosity, without control or expectations. Instead, I expected things to already be clear, headed in the direction I was going, and took things personally when things didn’t go the way I wanted. You’ve never had this problem before have you? This is brings me to the second thing; I quickly resented my friend.

That resentment was entirely about me.

Where does resentment come from? It seems to be a codependent strategy. It is definitely a defense mechanism, as it overshadows other feelings that may be harder to hold. Why does someone have to be to blame? Why resentment? It’s like a place where the energy can go other than turned inward - towards my own needs and pain. Instead there is a sense that someone’s needs are being met at the expense of another’s. That’s the field in which the resentment has a kind of logic. You know? Here is the logic: If I resent you, you will feel that, and change your behavior. Pretty passive aggressive, huh? Emotional enmeshment? Definitely. I have understood this intellectually for years now, but to see this mechanism play out in real time, and fail my relationship entirely was a wake up call.

This could have gone different, but a lesson was learned. I have a strong suspicion that had I simply invited my friend to sit down with me, said what I was feeling and shared my vision for our relationship, things would have gone much differently. Our connection would have remained open and the underlying issues could have come up naturally. But there was a positive side to this. I was eventually able to feel the fear of rejection, the ickiness of resentment, and am now feeling responsible for my behavior, lack of coherence, and the emotional manipulation behind resentment. This frees me up to see the ‘good and beautiful’ that was happening between us.

To see resentment as a symptom of personal isolation or repression is interesting. If given a chance to live in healthy expression, and move our energy out in healthy ways, and taking responsibility for that, we would have nothing to resent in others. Healthy expression of needs is so important, but also structuring situations and relationships so visions can be shared and structured around needs, so those can be all met in collaboration.

To be ‘simple and sincere inwardly, as well as outwardly’ can feel so far away sometimes. Especially when there are these knots inside of us that complicate the expression of our feelings and desires in life. Here we are at a turning point of letting go. First we must feel to heal.

What are the feelings you avoid when things get sticky? Fear of Rejection? Fear of Abandonment? Anxiety? Other overwhelming feelings?

Running from this feeling of rejection around this time got me into a whole other situation that got real negative really fast. In that situation, I saw my shadows of self-seeking, control, resentment and bitterness right before my eyes. I felt real shame, real rejection and really bad. I headed back home and reached out to two important friends who took me through my emotions, my values and I became responsible for everything I had thought, felt (not felt), and done in, and to create, the situations I was running from. Humbling, to say the least.

This humility was like a fresh look at my situation. It is what initiated a deeper awareness of my internal state. It is what woke me up from running. The ickiness and the shame became strong motivators to look at my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. I started to see how my judgment was just a cover, a shield, for the pain I was feeling. This humility began to bring me into self awareness, still remorseful but with a whole new way of seeing things. This humility allowed me to see that I was just being human, very imperfect and far form ideal, and also see my friends in the same light. Just human.

Seeing the values and unmet needs behind my motivations as well as the ulterior motives that creeped up behind my expectations and people pleasing behavior, made me see the good at work in the situation that I was unable to support. I saw all the connection that could have happened, had I been able to show up for it.

Humbling.

To be simple and sincere inwardly, as well as outwardly. For our heart’s to be pure and full of joy, and our intelligence and reason sound and accurate. That is my hope for myself, and for you. I do this by first honoring what is inside of me, then honoring it outwardly with sincerity. Then I do not see “evil” in others, only what good is wanting to be.

For over a year, this substack has been my heart’s work. A place for me to be as authentic and inspired as I possibly can be. Everything changes, and things are changing here. I am moving away from Gene Keys and Human Design content towards Nonduality and Tantra Yoga. Today, I took time to reread my posts. Rereading them has made me really proud of what I have accomplished. So many nuggets.

Reflecting Richard Rudd – Christi Inge and Chetan Parkyn as well – in my very inspired way allowed me to go deep into some really powerful and insightful areas of self-awareness. I was able to weave in my life experiences, conversations with friends and those who inspired me, and quotes and songs to further resonate and expand the inspiration as well. Here are some highlights from the last year’s posts that I can read and reread for some time to come.

These may even become the basis for continuing the Gene Keys series in some shape or form in the future. In a much shorter, succinct, and digestible way. I enjoy them out of context, and put together in this way. Certain threads continue to rise and join between them. Enjoy and Blessings! - Avalon

We are Source experiencing and loving itself in a new way.

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We must journey into our hearts to make room for the freshness, curiosity, potential, and boundlessness of this moment. We give ourselves the gift of adventure by freeing ourselves of the past; letting go of resentment and judgment. Only love can carry us through.

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I am Now. Simplicity is the basis of my awareness. Our simple awareness can do so much for us, when we let it. We have fear of being fully present, and victim patterns which outsource our power. When we touch this world – with our hands, feel, smell, taste, and love – we enter into the most powerful experience of uniqueness and diversity of life. In reality we are touching from this simple awareness of the essence of things. It is the natural way of relating, through body and soul.

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My attention is a choice.

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I hold together the light in my exquisite uniqueness.
My limitations are transcended in my sharing.

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With my humble magic my inner self-discipline can transcend all manner of life’s issues.

We are each examples in our authenticity, and individual representations of creation. We each shine bright like a diamond in communion with the light permeating all things – through honesty, service, respect, and our dharma.

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The power of stillness is the foundation for harmony, coherence, clarity, and right action. Everything becomes revealed when we stop.

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My inner stillness is sufficient.

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Events provoke consciousness. Troubleshoot with sensitivity to serve liberation. The tension that builds in life is perfectly designed to be released in our spiritual freedom. Freedom that includes discipline and responsibility as much as acceptance and letting go of what we can’t control. The secret is to move: “just do it”. Go for it. Assistance comes when we act.

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Genius, intelligence, coherence, creativity are truly “non-local” as consciousness. In our expansion we may face fear and shame. Progress involves patience and the key is expanding the Heart.

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We may mistake clear knowledge and precise details with intelligence. Only good intentions and our whole awareness can allow us to access our intelligence and not get trapped in the false intelligence of the intellect.

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We are able to examine our outmoded beliefs and fixed ideas as we collect new experiences. Reality itself is a story – and a shifting one at that!

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The power to lead comes at first glance from our ability to use language (and the openness of others) to our advantage. But true influence comes from our heart. We have the potential to really lead from a divine place, where we speak on behalf of the divine, and without misidentifying ourselves as individuality that has some control over reality. We are only a part of the mystery, and “everything is how it ought to be.” What a great world it would be if we all lead from this truth.

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The gift of being present […] without illusion. The opportunity for revelation and evolution is in your very presence and self-witnessing.

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Struggle is part of life. How much meaning and purpose we give to our life determines how much meaning and purpose our struggles have. The more we are attuned to the depth of our being, the more we can experience opposition as the transforming nature of life. We can easily mistrust life, and want to fight the world in our desire for freedom. The truth is we are all one, and the light that makes us warriors of light illuminates everything and everyone with honor.

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Notice how all institutions built on fear seem to crumble? We are entering a collective cosmic communion based on goodwill. This will allow us to dovetail our enterprises instead of compete with exclusion, changing the game from competition driven by fear and insecurity to collaboration based on shared information and resources.

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Our guidance, and our virtue are present in our own integrity, responsibility, and self-discipline that come with virtue. What if we forgot the illusion we are all in it for ourselves? What if we allowed our gifts to shine without being divided by the illusions of self-interest?

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Real understanding is not to be found in the mind. The depth of understanding carries a powerful aspect: Forgiveness. Forgiveness within our understanding allows it to unfold completely. We forgive our mental constructs, our justifications. We see understanding at many levels, and accept all the ways of understanding.

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It is my patience that allows ultimate pleasure.

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What a sweet realization of energy we find in devotion. What can we commit to? There is an element of luck in trusting life. And trusting in life is really what this gift is about; trusting in the life force within the heart enough to commit to a journey through to the end. The shadow here is Halfheartedness; not being reliable because we are afraid we made the wrong choice – or, being overcommited; not knowing when to move on, being rigged in our disconnection with our heart’s desires.

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It starts within. The truth is our trauma is a gift. Our inner pain, when faced, provides huge breakthroughs into our true nature and the deep magic of being within us. As we do the work of experiencing inner pain, we enter into deeper awareness, deeper intimacy with our selves, and become more capable of deep intimacy with others. We join, connect, penetrate, commit, unify and carry wisdom; […] discerning the different levels of intimacy, and choosing our most transparent and deep connections.

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Where are we coming from? Is our support for life in the flow of things? Are we forcing it, over using our willpower? Our resolve takes us from struggle to liberation when we are willing to be alone in our resolve, create boundaries, share support, and have our convictions. This way we can access the miraculous power of this gift, where we can do almost anything in service to life. Attuning is key here. In the gift of our resolve, we attune to the great order of the cosmos, a mystery beyond even our loftiest concepts.

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Confusion is what precedes our clarity, and we must learn to trust ourselves to be patient enough to give it time. To see clarity arise from confusion simply takes time. And the payoff is glorious, it is the Art of Life.

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We can experience the limits of our victim mindset. We can simply bring awareness to our Judgement, and see it for what it is: the shadow of our great gift of Integrity. Integrity is really about integration. Wholeness. Ultimately this takes us to the healing potential within everyone and everything. From our hearts desire to serve and protect all of humanity, we can see the right use of our perfectionism; the potential to move towards perfect form.

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Inadequacy is a widespread shadow. We can’t trust our bodies to feel, or nature to provide, and in turn try and force this world to give us the illusion of security. The nature of this gift is endless abundance and the support of endless creativity – with the caveat that it is necessary, of service, and honest. Wisdom is really about the gift of resourcefulness, tapping something within us that has a answer for every need. That is our nature, because it is the essence of nature; Creative Intelligence.

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If we put our authority outside ourselves, in expert authority, peer pressure, rationalization, or any other form of understanding that is not within us, we are subject to this feeling of unease. However, we can simply remain calm, trust our intuition, and listen to “the wind in the trees.” What is it saying? What is coming? What is happening? We have the opportunity to improve our art of intuition, trusting those whispers in the wind to bring us clarity, and more.

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The only constant is change. Impermanence is our spiritual reality. What endures? What is worth enduring? We only fail when we cut ourselves off from the whole. “Failures” in life are needed to further what sustains us. What doesn’t work must fall away for what does to work. We have the ability support what deserves supporting and let go of what no longer serves life. Not in isolation, but in relationship, and in the community. The deep gift here is to see ourselves in the web of life […] We can venerate life at every turn, and every little part, as we let go of our fear of death or being cast out by the tribe, listening to our natural instinct for knowing what is needed to support life in us and around us.

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We take for granted how much we are all working together to support each other. Life is always helping life. We are so adjusted to a baseline of dysfunction, of struggle, of failing systems and false promises, we forget our natural state is Harmony. We are designed to resonate our gifts and to share those as meeting community and group needs. When harmonics resonate, wow it is a shift! Being of service to whole, and really helping, is such a gift. We must first be empowered and in harmony in ourselves.

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Our fear of death keeps us in our “sin” and keeps our inner demons in the dark. With courage of heart, and knowledge of our true gifts – ourselves, we can see life for what it is; a game. Our great challenge in life is to let it come, and play our part.

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Looking at our karma and clearing it can be of great benefit. We can forgive the past. There is a simple tool we can bring to protect our sovereignty while supporting our interdependence; silence.

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Our understanding of beauty is deeply mystical. We can, however, feel and see creative force flow through us. We can protect this energy by allowing time without any creativity at all – allowing pause, emptiness, and entropy. This time “without” beauty and freshness is actually fertile ground for the next wave of creative energy. Experiencing our creative energy is experiencing divine energy, without beginning or end, endlessly inspiring us.

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The paradox to insight is that it is not found in the mind. Our greatest insights and epiphanies come when we listen to what our body is telling us. Our feelings, sensations, intuition, instinct, or inner knowing are our wholeness. When we listen to our inner authority we are aligning with the Divine Plan. Our Epiphany is ultimately that it is all consciousness. And “all that we know is that we don’t know.” That is such a freeing and friendly feeling to have.

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Doing what we know is not right for us. This is compromise. When we do what is actually resonant with our inner wisdom, inner authority, real gifts of innate genius, we show our tru competence. We know our true competence by our efficiency, flair, enthusiasm, and flexibility. We can develop inner resolve to make compromise inside impossible, and be “unseducible” (unassailable to anything or anyone that would have us do what we do not want to do) by using living in our gifts and learning to listen to our inner authority.

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Each of us has the gift of inner power, and when naturally expressed it is unselfconscious and majestic. It is simply the right application of our power in divine timing, responding and not reacting. We can apply power in just the right way. How are you treating your body? Does your creative power have the resources it needs? Listening to the moment and being present is very powerful here. This is how we can be experience the difference between power and force in right application and timing.

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We must listen to our inner timing to create healthy habits, rituals, and patterns. If the foundation is laid in this inner listening and inner timing, our patience becomes very active and vital. We are able to channel the Timelessness of our Being into life’s natural rhythms. Like the shadow of Hunger, our Impatience is so worried about things, when it is our experience of things that makes our lives full and magical. The gift of Patience is our presence in the flow of life’s rhythms.

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This is a great time to know thyself, and love thyself. Whenever someone works with you, hires you, or buys your product, they are “buying” your energy, your frequency, your enthusiasm, your gifts, and your natural magic. This is a great time to remember to “sell your soul” in the best possible way. haha. Share your gift with this world; market yourself as a person authentically, and have fun doing it! The best work in this world is in the place God calls you to.

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The best business is our “Isness”. We can be deeply honest in ourselves to avoid living in fantasy and delusions about what dreams ought to become a reality.

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The “right use of the Imagination” is in alignment with service, with life. We know it because it is unlocked in our expression and with others. It is actually Love of Creation. We know the truth when we experience it. This creates the great dance of lightness and darkness, “good and bad” that are ever evolving us into reunion with our whole nature. Love of Creation is the gift within this gift. This gift truly can take us beyond good and bad, rightness and wrongness…so that all that wants to manifest does so in this reality. Reality is magic, magic is reality. We do not do magic, we are magic. Our awareness can go deep in the mind and body with this Light. Our words can carry the coherence and language of Light. Our lives can be defined by “impossible” miracles when we serve the Light of our truest and most resonant dreams. Because, we are Source dreaming this world into reality.

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What are you doing with your life on Earth? “Why are you “there”, when you’re everywhere?” – to quote John Lennon. Bliss is our nature and our birthright. It cannot be faked. According to Richard Rudd, our dissatisfaction will continue to point us to our true nature: Bliss. We tap our vitality in our silence, aligning, discretion and care. And “We All Shine On…like the Moon and the Stars and Sun.”

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The thing about greed is it is mistaking winning with the process of playing. Acquisition is not prosperity. The secret of material success and of spiritual success are found when we experience them as one and the same. We can be confident because our existence itself has a plan for us. “The Way Knows the Way.”

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Enjoy “The Divine Door” by getting still in the body, at peace, or in your breath. Once we end our Psychosis, the gifts of inspiration and sanctity naturally come. We may be able to live in our shadows of disenchantment and fanaticism. But it is not really living now is it? Open the door of creativity. We can experience ourselves as the “Truth at the Center”, with our own divinity, mysterious and sincere – where the inner workings of life are revealed.

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Creation structures freedom, because structuring serves energy. Containment, embodied magic, shows you the power of your boundaries, the freedom created by structure, and the magic that comes when you make room for it. We can deeply respect the darkness between things, words, notes, and actions as the much needed space for magic to enter. “The only thing needed for magic to occur is some form of a structure and an open mind!” - Richard Rudd.

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Being in the anticipation of the unfolding of our dreams – we can live in fantasy, or we can embrace our manifestation. Our manifestation is the energy to honor our hopes and dreams, watching them evolve by fulfilling them. “Means gather around Sattva”. We don’t have to worry or fear, escaping into illusions of happiness. We are here to embody Divine Will. We simply have to live in our gifts, steady and true.

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We can forget or misunderstand our own needs, not giving time or space for our needs, not growing in those spaces. This makes us susceptible to overwhelm in the energy waves of others. We have to look at our sensitivity and any codependency and what healthy sacrifice is ultimately about. We are experiencing agency here. Sensitivity is all about energy and the sensitivity to others’ energy, as well as our more tribal responsibilities. The fear of being alone is here. We carry emotional experiences and eating habits related to this Sensitivity. Emotional Independence is the foundation. Emotional independence.“When your heart and being open to sense the abundance of this energy throughout nature, you become for the first time emotionally independent.” - Richard Rudd.

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Listening is absorbing the sound. It is listening to the whole story, the experience, the experiencer, the past, the whole problem, beyond any raw desire to accomplish a goal, It is Deep Listening. Deep Listening is actually Empathy. Empathy is to be within the other. This is growing and evolving collective awareness beyond individual experience, beyond the illusion of separation. It is the sensitivity of awareness itself experiencing itself. May we listen to our feelings with that universal self-witnessing. May we hear the story of history being played out in the collective, as simply the illusion of separation failing us. May we experience the natural optimism inherent in our awareness, our active listening, watching our desire and courage become compassion and release. May we join again each other in our listening, and experience the spaciousness and aliveness of god’s love for all in all.

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“Unhappiness is the first sign that something powerful stirs within you.” There is a powerful motivation to protect humanity, protecting humans, protecting the vulnerable, standing up for human beings and living your principles. Is our revolutionary spirit just another reaction, or a positive change? The greatest revolution is our collective rebirth of all that we truly are. Our nature to love, serve, and remember that source is in all things. We are here to heal, feed, and serve the health and fullness of each life. Ignorant, rebellious or intolerant, aka Reactive lately? This is coming from our fear of rejection, and fear of nature. As you open up to your transformation, you can make your debut into new authenticity, living from your values. But you must open yourself to this deep and powerful rebirth. Sit and feel, patiently. Clarity will come. We build from there.

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Desires are endless. Fulfilling them never brings lasting peace. Our desire is meant to move us into evolution, but it also forms the basis of our longing for Divine Union. This comes by feeling our feelings. Feelings come in waves. We are not driven by them when we let them pass through us without reaction. We learn to mindfully pause when feelings arise so we can feel them fully, and relate to them clearly. We experience impermanence and gain Lightness through this work of feeling deeply. We see energy come and go and begin to take deeper pleasure in being alive. Feeling intensely is the basis of our human experience.

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Fear of lack and emptiness becomes trust in life, and a deeper Freedom. Victim consciousness may be the most defining characteristic of our time. Being aware of our true power as co-creators of this world will be a giant shift that we are already seeing the early stages of.

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Life is a gift. Experience is a gift. This moment is a gift. We experience the abundant nature of life and meet this world as co-creators, or we experience the illusion of separation from life and victim consciousness. Victim consciousness is an attitude towards life where our power and agency are placed outside of us. We complain and blame instead of taking responsibility for our own power.

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When we take responsibility for our lives, for our suffering, our shadows, our blame, we begin to dissolve the bars of our prison cell. We see the patterns and levels of awareness. We see our attitude and honor the gift from Source that has given us a co-creative role in this world, starting with our attitude towards it. We experience emotions and become aware of them. We experience emotions as shared energy and waves passing through us. We see the whole field is based on this experience, awareness, and understanding of vibrations.

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We let go and trust in life. We feel the freedom of this truth that we are Free. We cannot control anything in this world, but maybe one thing: our attitude to it. This knowing is a very powerful freedom. It is a receiving of all that is here for us and receiving our part in that. Let us awaken to our own victim consciousness, be creators of this world responsible only for ourselves, contributing to the great collective shift on the planet, as we find abundance each in our own heart. The greatest Freedom is being free from the illusion we are separate from life.

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No feeling is final. Each of us has the ability to endure any feeling with Allowing. We naturally possess a constant presence. This presence can breakthrough emotional habits that no longer serve us. We access this by following our Light in any situation. With this mysterious inner presence we resolve crisis. We feel to heal. We simply breathe with acceptance and our awareness enters our solar plexus. We bring emotional pain to light, and it naturally passes through us.

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What happens when we forget our natural capacity to love everyone and everything. We are drawn deep into our fears, like a trap that when leaned into continues an inward spiral of fear that gets more and more constricting. This feeling can be totally paralyzing, and you know this shadow by those who are paralyzed by forgetting their true nature is Love. It can kill a human being, this shadow. But there is an instant way out of this hell. Accessing the now in our body. We can can know the boundless nature of Universal Love in loving and living our lives without ulterior motives, being present and open to what actually is happening in this moment, adjusting to how things are turning out, being blameless by being true to oneself, being healthy in body AND spirit, and finally accepting that knowledge and “understanding” is ultimately narrowing, and limited, compared to our spiritual, heart centered knowing.

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We are narrowed by our identification with only one perspective. Our awareness is naturally interconnecting and in service to life. The secret to an open mind is an Open Heart. We are Awareness itself. That alone is real. This respect for Awareness in everyone and everything comes from our open heart. It helps us to make company with those who appreciate our own spark. We will inevitably experience the futility of identifying with only one perspective, and our hearts will then illuminate our understanding instantly through our awareness.

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Each of us is an Authority in something, even if it is an authority at simply being ourselves. We are each responsible for the one thing we can control. How we choose to respond to life; our thoughts, feelings, actions, people, places, and things. Paradoxically, we gain power by admitting to ourselves how powerless we are over everything! This is the mystical reality of power and of self-control. All our power is contingent on our surrendering to the sacredness of life and our part in honoring that.

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“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” - Viktor Frankl

By enduring shocks, change, and rebirth, we are experiencing our own awareness, its limits, revealing the dreamlike quality of life. We are the dreamer! To be Initiated by change, agitation, or arousal, is to choose to engage our lives creatively. We actually do this from a place of stillness at the heart of our hearts. This is so natural to us, but we so easily forget. It can also come back to us like a shock of knowing again. Ah Ha! We do this by knowing what we are not, letting go of how things should be, experiencing what we are, setting ourselves right, being steady in our determination to live, and being reborn through our faith in life.

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When we accept our expectations and attachments, and then let them go, something happens. We are able to celebrate every event – every feeling, expansion, reorientation, reinvention – as beautiful and part of the unfolding of life. This awareness is beyond life and death. It sees meaning in everything. It sees something more pure than any thought or idea or reflection that moves on the surface of our lives. This celebration of life is emanating from our existence itself, and the impartial and all-loving nature within us.

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We are fundamentally challenged by change to navigate confusion and establish order. Hang on to your faith in life, sincere communication, loved ones, your helpers, and what lights you up. Detach from the results by being authentic. We experience everything as Chaos or Cosmos - meaningless change, or divine ordering. When we see through the eyes of a child, we see everything is Play. Everything is a divine game of pretend and everything is a part of this play. That’s what is so serious about it. Ha. Everything has a chance and must play a part. But with a little time patterns emerge. The motion behind a change…then this moment…and where this moment is leading. This order starts to feel more natural as we adjust. We are pulled towards what we intuitively feel we have the energy for. We are likewise repelled from what our gut tells us we do not have the energy for.

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When we tap our selflessness, our life supporting energy, we are tapping the real “free energy”. The holy grail of fuels. This is the energy that makes an acorn grow into a maple tree. It is the intelligence of mycelium. It is the divine message that all life answers. All life is this web of answering what the divine wants to be; myriad expressions and diverse and subtle experiences of itself in this universe. This is the level of creative intelligence at work in each of us, endlessly providing the resources for any need. We need to care for ourselves to be healthy, rested, and energized, before we can truly care for others. When we share our gifts freely, we find coherence and purpose in service to meeting needs.

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Listening and receiving transforms situations and life, unlocks magic, generates opportunity, and allows abundance. This is divine receptivity. Let the truth come through in all the different ways. Stop and listen. Receive with joy, gratitude, and interest to what the universe is speaking through people, places, and things. Receive guidance from life itself… from your own life. Where do we go? What do we do? What do we like? What do we really want? What really lights me up? What a thing to discover. To feel.

If you made it this far…Thank you everyone who has supported my work this year. You know who you are! You have kept my fire burning in your thoughtful reflections and encouragement. I release you to unsubscribe. Haha I will transition out of Gene Keys and into Nonduality and Tantra Yoga in the coming weeks. My only hope is to be as consistent and involved as last year. This may mean rebranding… “The Great Avalon Tantra Yoga Deepest Insights In the Body and World Podcast”. Lol. This will definitely mean making this substack a very very alive place for me to share. Wish me luck!

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Listen to the Emotional Independence bonus episode I mentioned here.

The assumption of duality is also within Oneness; some advocate this opinion. They say that even in the midst of this lila, Oneness remains unimpaired. In Vedanta too, duality is out of the question. Although duality appears to manifest itself before the eyes of the bhakta, nevertheless, here also there is nothing but Oneness. If one does not view things through the spectacles of the bhakta, this cannot be grasped. Seen from his angle of vision, it appears thus.
– Anandamayi Ma

By the grace of Srila Bhakti Bibudha Bodhayan, I am blessed. Any wisdom that is here is not mine. I admit I know nothing, only the love that is transmitted to me and through me. Let me explain…

When I was preparing for my travels to India this year something happened. I was preparing to attend the Gauranga Mahaprahbu appearance-day festival and parikrama at the Gopinath Gaudiya Math, Navadwip – in the Nadia district in the Indian state of West Bengal. I was attending at the expressed invitation of Gurudev, Srila Bhakti Bibudha Bodhayan, the acharya of the temple. This was a true honor. I had (and have) the distinct impression that I was deeply fortunate to receive the invitation. Nonetheless, I had several days before I left where I began to feel really anxious.

Leading up to my departure I began to feel nervous. I think I was nervous that I was getting in over my head. First off, I was going to attend several days in relative austerity in a temple residence. Second, I had heard that it would be a powerful pilgrimage involving waking before dawn and walking to different temples in the locality and then singing into the night. Thirdly, I knew that I was going straight into the heart of Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, the birthplace of Chaitanya. The origin of the “Hare Krishna” movement. I would be deep inside the culture of selfless devotion to Lord Krishna and Radha. I began to wonder if I wasn’t going to betray my Shiva-Shankara roots.

For background, my father and mother had been meditating years before I was born. And continued to meditate more less until they passed away. I know now that the wisdom they carried and the practice they did daily was Yoga Tantra and deeply rooted in the tradition of Nonduality and Shaivism, use of stillness and mantra to “transcend thought” and experience bliss in all parts of the body and life. I myself have been using the same techniques (what the word “tantra” means) for 20 years. My father disseappeared from his mortal coil last summer, and his presence inside my heart and his spirit have been touchstones for me this year. The idea of going “against” his way of connecting with the divine, and going to a place where they say mantras out loud and proclaim that this is the best (and sometimes only) way to god seemed to cause inner dissonance. Was I betraying him? Would I be asked to renounce my deep meditation and experiences of nonduality for “the only way” to God? Looking back I think I was simply afraid of “doing it wrong.” Truth is, you can’t do it wrong. There is no wrong way to surrender one’s heart to God/Goddess/Source.

After a few days the tension, the apprehension I was holding, just melted away. I suddenly remembered that Krishna himself affirmed that “Atman is Brahman” in the Bhagavad Gita. That is to say, The soul within is non-different from all of Creation and it’s origin. Put another way Universal Soul in each person is Creation itself. Put even another way, you could say we are Nondual. The day after I felt this melting away of tension, and had my little vision of Krishna saying “I am in all beings”, so to speak. I attended a singing circle at a friends house. She had in her living room all of these framed images of beautifully rendered Peacocks, with their tail feathers and the eyes on the feathers very visible. Peacocks are associated with Krishna, who wore a feather of one in his hair. I looked around and remembered my relief. It was as if God were winking at me, saying, “See? I am everywhere. Why do you worry after me?”

Krishna represents the fullest expression of Nonduality. But how? This wisdom becomes a sort of riddle. How can there be both one divinity and then also something to worship? In the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, there is a verse (Verse 16) that seems to put god beyond worship: “One should know my essential nature to be that joy, pure, and pervading the entire universe. As this is the nature of the Supreme Reality, who is to be worshipped and who is to be satisfied?” Doesn’t it seem plain then, that being in devotion to Krishna, in Krishna Consciousness, is to be in duality? I am here and Krishna is there, right? The answer was presented to me in the most natural ways. Let me share them with you here, and how they came from the lectures of Gurudev, and from the experiences I had in my heart while there. Simply put, Nonduality is the essence of Krishna Consciousness, as it the deepest experience of Unity one can have, just like the depth of non dual meditation – only different.

Here’s what Gurudev said that illuminated it for me: First, before the parikrama he sought Shiva’s blessing. I wasn’t there but I saw him speaking on video broadcast during the parikrama on social media. BB Bodayan has thousands of disciples by the way. Anyway, he said before we enter the parikrama we must seek Shiva’s blessing. As I understand it, this is because Mahaprhabu Chaitanya first prayed to Shiva for 15 days straight. Lord Shiva then appeared to him and said what do you want. Chetanya asked him and Shiva said he could not help him, but nearby there were Rishis and Shiva instructed Chetanya to ask them. From these rishis Chetanya learned the Mahamantra and the practice of Harinam was born. So even before I was going to the temple, the question in my heart was being answered. I didn’t think much of it though, there is always a lot of wisdom being transmitted in listening to Gurudev, so I was digesting it at this time. When I got there it was some days in when the teaching about Shiva and Chetanya was mentioned again. It solidified my understanding of what Guru-ji was saying. Others also mentioned it. I did seek Shiva’s blessing in Vrindavan, before we attended the ceremonies in Bengal. That was interesting.

My friends had echoed that we must seek Shiva’s blessing before parikrama. When walking in the narrow streets of Vrindavan a suitable Shiva temple was pointed out and while Subhadra Devi waited outside, Devadeva Das and myself entered the temple. We walked in, saw many people pouring oblations and libations, in orderly fashion. At the heart of the temple was a Lingam. Here devotees were pouring milk and water and placing flowers. There was a priest or attendant there collecting flowers and money and giving puja supplies. We saw the well from where folks were gathering water into copper and tin jugs to pour onto the lingam. I went and gathered water and brought it the center and joined others pouring libations and chanted my chant to Shiva. I called Devadeva over, and he also held the pitcher and offered to Shiva. Then the officiant gave us flower garlands, very wet. And we put them on our necks, quickly realizing we would have to give them away soon as they were soaking our clothes. Side note: There are things you do when you enter a temple and ways to interact that are respectful of god and to the other folks who are there. I did not mention these but know that I was learning these and practicing them to practice my deep respect and love in my posture, actions, and words. I do them imperfectly and by the grace of the goddess, so don’t think I think I know what I am doing. But I am teachable, I hope.

Back to the wisdom from gurudev. One class he gave he talked about separation. I think he talked about it a few times and this one time it was such a revelation to me. He said “No separation, no relationship”. Now I want to go back to the quote from Anandamayi Ma at the beginning of this, “Although duality appears to manifest itself before the eyes of the bhakta, nevertheless, here also there is nothing but Oneness. If one does not view things through the spectacles of the bhakta, this cannot be grasped. Seen from his angle of vision, it appears thus.”

Guruji’s name is Bhakti Bibudha Bodhayan, he is the embodied wisdom of bhakti and deeply versed in the Vedas. This is what his name means. He was all of this and more, in my experience. He was the hub of so much divine energy, devotion, somber soulful longing, and blissful love and kindness. He was the hub of so much spiritual energy around him and through him, I cannot describe it accurately. Being in his presence at the temple with devotees, colleagues, attendants, householders, in the midst of the great celebration of the festival of Gauranga’s birth, was beyond description. I will be writing and recording some of my sensations and experiences in the temple as part of my Sacred Journeys series. What does Bhakti mean exactly? It is the union with god in devotion. It includes dance, music, and singing and poetry. It is knowing God directly through love. It is the union of the self with the divine through the illuminated realms of expression. If you know you know. To not only feel divine love inside, but to sing it, to praise it out loud is a real trip, and I highly recommend letting your heart sing out this way if you ever feel like it. So much happens in Bhakti, and inside the Bhakta, the person experiencing Bhakti, or expressing it, it is also beyond words. So when Gurudev said “Without separation there is no relationship” it really went deep into my heart, into the place where the tension was before. And it further built a new understanding. Like a puzzle piece had been put in where there was a space. He said the longing in us in how we come to god. He said it was like a swing game where they put the dieties into swings during a festival; the swing goes away and we long for god, the swing comes our way and we feel the complete and embracing presence of god again, full of god’s grace. This is the swing within us, the back and forth. “No separation, no relationship”. I now had a part of the riddle solved. Whether in Bhakti, or deep meditation, or living a life of service and devotion, each is a separation meeting unity. Each is a longing meeting love.

The other part of the puzzle, “who is to be worshipped, who is to be satisfied?” When god is all pervading joy and bliss, why feel separate at all? Why not experience the unity of all things and be done with it? This is where the apparent different between Nonduality (Advaita) and Krishna Consciousness exists. But it is a false distinction. There is no difference. If you have experience with either, by grace, then no explanation is necessary, and if you do not, maybe no explanation will suffice. But I will present what has come through my mind and heart in this matter. I humbly recognize that I am an amateur expert at best, please forgive me any inaccuracies and misconceptions I may accidentally convey.

Krishna explicitly identifies himself with the innermost Self of all beings, stating: “aham ātmā guḍākeśa sarva-bhūta-śhaya-sthitaḥ...” (I am the Atman, O Arjuna, seated within the hearts of all living entities) in the Bhagavad Gita. The traditional saying from the Upanishads is “Atman is Brahman” As I said before. So how can devotion to a diety be non dual? The reality of my question earlier, “why experience difference at all” is the great mystery of all. Why are somethings beautiful and others not? Contrast? Why is contrast always present in beautiful art? Why is the universe diverse if it is fundamentally unified in the first place? This is the mystery of life. Minimalist painter Agnes Martin said “Beauty is the mystery of life”. I will leave this deep question to your contemplation, receiving, presencing the question in your own experience.

The Gaudiya Vaishnavas say “inconceivable oneness and difference”. When they say Krishna is Supreme Lord, they mean so much more than might at first imagine. In this tradition, Krishna is inseparable from Radha, the feminine principle and potency of Krishna. So the plot is already thickened by this apparently dual presence of the Oneness of God. There is so much here, there are whole treatises written on this subject. I will spare you any further interpretations. Also I would need to read a few papers before writing any more. Haha. “Achintya-bheda-abheda” “inconceivable oneness and difference” Is how it is put. This is the reality for the Bhaktas. Like Anandamayi Ma (who was born a Vaishnava in Bengal) put it,”if one does not view things through the spectacles of the bhakta, this cannot be grasped. Seen from his angle of vision, it appears thus.”

If you want, listen to the sweetest and most powerful music (drupad singing, raga, bhajan), read the poetry of saint poets, or simply dance before god, within god. Try it and see if you do not also see through the eyes of Bhakta. Where longing meets love, where separation is justified as the play needed for reunion, and knowing again the loving embrace of the divine. Krishna Consciousness is Nonduality that must be experienced directly in one’s self, body and mind, bhava (feeling, mood, heart’s emotion). Krishna also said “Bhava Grahi Janardana” Which is to say Krishna or God accepts the essence or intent of your heart, not the complex techniques of the vedas to be followed or practiced perfectly. Nonduality is the reality that is so simple it is not possible for us to experience because of all the knots and actions that distract us from it. It is very simple, we are distracted. When we take up space and time for our heart to experience this reality we become able to feel our presence in god and become full of bliss, actually! This is but a brush with the eternal. May we all be so blessed. Hare Krishna, Haribol, Radhe Radhe. I am That, Thou Art That, All This is That. May you find the divine unity of all things in each and everything you encounter in and around you.

One more thing. One last note. “Love god with all of you heart. Know god this way and love others as you love god.” Is this not the spirit of Christ’s commandment to his followers?

Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed listening. Goodbye for now, and until next time, be well friends.

Watch the 3 min clip I mention in this episode: Quicksilver (X-Men) lives in his Contribution as service (in this case saving everyone after stumbling upon a disaster) with spontaneous alignment, resolve, and even playful joy. Oh yeah, and no one else even saw it happen. ;-)

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